5 ms·

The author of that article says "I know from personal experience that today [2005] Microsoft takes application compatibility very seriously". And if you want t

by delonia 11y ago

The author of that article says "I know from personal experience that today [2005] Microsoft takes application compatibility very seriously". And if you want to install Windows on a computer that already has a Linux distribution installed (dual-boot), then Windows will replace the existing boot manager, making it really difficult to boot Linux. That thing used to happen then, and it still happens now (2015).

cwyers 11y ago
That's not the same thing as application compatibility.
toast0 11y ago
Yes, it's annoying, but it's not app compat. And dual-boot is pretty far outside the mainstream, I don't blame them for not building out other boot loader detection and integration. Other bootloaders change frequently, and windows install discs come out maybe every two years. It's better to have consistent behavior (windows install WILL wipe your MBR) than sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, and when it doesn't work everyone says it worked for me, etc.
- anonbanker 11y ago
  it's so far out the mainstream, that people have been doing it regularly for 20 years now. Grub is old enough to attend Junior High. Lilo would be in grad school. they both have windows compatability. Microsoft not reciprocating is evidence of their intent.
  - TodPunk 11y ago
    "People" in this instance is a handful of special edge cases compared to the majority of computer users, even if we're only looking at people that build their own computer, or hell, even just looking at only linux users. Dual booting is a minority. Yes, you CAN do it. Linux has made it easy. Great! But not many DO. Nobody gives hell to every other OS manufacturer that will clobber our current bootloader configs. That means more than OSX, btw.
  - eropple 11y ago
    FreeBSD used to (maybe still does?) clobber the boot loader too. Do they also have mustachios that they evilly twirl?
    - krylon 11y ago
      On the other hand, Windows runs on 85 - 90 percent of desktop machines, whereas FreeBSD's market share on the desktop is probably below 1%. (This is not a judgement on FreeBSD's quality as a desktop system, I have used it myself for about two years and was very happy with it. But compared to Windows, its market share on the desktop is tiny.) For better or worse, there is a difference between a system used by a tiny minority of people (again: on the desktop) and a system that practically has a monopoly on the (corporate) desktop and that is developed and sold by a company that has a history of anti-competitive behavior. (And to be fair, I get the impression that things have begun to change at Microsoft since Nadella became CEO. But that still does not erase history.)
      - eropple 11y ago
        That other hand and its callbacks to anti-competitive behavior and whispers of monopolies don't have much bearing on anything unless you are prepared to substantiate exactly how this behavior impacts the market share of other competitors. (I wish you luck on that very, very long row to hoe.) Meanwhile, even that "good behaving" Linux distro will happily remove Windows's boot record in favor of GRUB's, rendering the system reliant on a component that breaks if you want to remove Linux (and most people are way more likely to want to remove Linux than to remove Windows!). Hardly neighborly behavior in and of itself. And yet, I'm still not seeing a reason to cast aspersions on GRUB or Linux distros, nor am I seeing those twirly mustachios on their faces. No OS gives much of a damn about anything else running on the computer. Claims to the contrary are literally farcical and the pseudo-damages it could theoretically cause to the easily bruised are silly.
        krylon 11y ago
        > No OS gives much of a damn about anything else running on the computer. Most Linux distros (the ones I have used, at least) will detect an existing Windows installation and put a corresponding entry into GRUB's menu. Linux has been able to access data on Windows partitions for many, many years. I agree that the boot loader issue probably has at most negligible impact on the adoption of Linux (or any other OS for that matter). I am just saying that in light of Microsoft's history one may feel inclined to judge them differently.
- rbanffy 11y ago
  > I don't blame them for not building out other boot loader detection and integration. It's not that they even try. Not even a little. Last time I installed Windows on real metal, it didn't even warn the other operating system would no longer boot. Microsoft probably has an internal policy to consider installing Windows is an upgrade.
untog 11y ago
I don't see how those two things are in any way connected. The point they were making is that you might even be able take a Windows 3.1 app (but definitely a Windows 95 one) and run it on Windows 8.
- jcranmer 11y ago
  Actually, you can't do Windows 3.1: Microsoft ripped out the Win16 subsystem in Windows 7.
  - yuhong 11y ago
    They didn't. You can still enable it in 32-bit Win10 I think.
    - creshal 11y ago
      16-bit compatibility only exists in the 32-bit version, no longer in the 64-bit one. Same as every x64 version since XP64.
      - wvenable 11y ago
        This is because in 64-bit mode the CPU can no longer handle 16-bit code. It's all AMD's fault...
    - apaprocki 11y ago
      I wonder if Solaris ABI compat is actually older than the Windows stuff. Solaris to this day maintains binary compat with older releases and, for example, a 32-bit fopen() will fail once you open 255 streams because that was the limit in the ancient ABI. Everyone using Solaris at one point or another has probably hit this and it caused some issue, but Sun^H^H^HOracle refuses to make modern operation the default, all in the name of ancient binary compat. That's a bit more hardcore than optional support you can enable.
code_sterling 11y ago
And it should. Seriously, there are are less than 2% of users using Linux on the Desktop. Now a fraction of these users dual boot. Microsoft is a business, and it's bad business to spend money you could be using to make your product better to ensure that you play nice with every possible bootloader out there.
- krylon 11y ago
  Most people that are capable of installing Linux (or some other Unixoid system) are probably capable of reinstalling GRUB (at least with a little help from a search engine of their choice). But if you try to get your parents to give Linux a try, because their laptop ends up infected with some virus every other month, this does not help. Which makes me think: What about dual-booting two Windows installations? This is probably a very rare scenario, especially with virtualization, but what if I was developing, say, device drivers and wanted to check my driver works both on, say, Windows 7 and 8/8.1? Does the Windows installer put my other Windows installation in the boot menu automatically? (Honest question, I have never tried this and probably never will.)
  - code_sterling 11y ago
    I wouldn't recommend linux if your parents keep getting malware. Wipe the PC, and set yourself up as the admin. Create a base user account for your parents, and RDP in to their machine to install programs for them. Or get them to use a tablet. The other option is to set them up with a mac. If they stay within the App Store, they're pretty safe.
  - Shorel 11y ago
    I triple boot Windows XP, Windows 7 and Ubuntu 32bits in my gaming computer. Grub shows a single Windows entry on its boot menu. Then you see Windows 7 and 'Previous Windows version' in a text mode menu.
    - krylon 11y ago
      Thanks for the info!
digi_owl 11y ago
OS/2 is perhaps not the best example, as early on it was a MS/IBM collaborative project. And even afterwards it had the economic backing of IBM. So if MS got overt about it, there would likely have been a lawsuit. There is less risk of such from Linux. Even at their current size, RH is a flea next to MS.
- yuhong 11y ago
  That OS/2 2.0 fiasco used to be my favorite topic and I do have bad things to say against MS about it.
RaleyField 11y ago
> really difficult You only need to reinstall grub/lilo. It's possible to even use Windows bootloader.
mjg59 11y ago
This is limited to BIOS-based booting, and there isn't really a whole lot of choice there. There's no standardised mechanism for bootloader configuration in the BIOS world, so you have the choice of either: (a) overwriting the existing MBR, or (b) knowing how to configure every single third party bootloader, or (c) not booting In the UEFI world, the Windows installer won't overwrite any files it didn't install.
- digi_owl 11y ago
  UEFI brings with it all kinds of other lovelies though. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTIyOTg https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTIyOTg Kinda reminds me of the issues Linux has run into with ACPI, and here are some lovely emails from Torvalds regarding that: http://yarchive.net/comp/linux/acpi.html http://yarchive.net/comp/linux/acpi.html
Shorel 11y ago
I think it just stopped happening with UEFI and Win10. With the caveat that UEFI has its own can of worms...

by delonia 11y ago

cwyers 11y ago

That's not the same thing as application compatibility.

toast0 11y ago

Yes, it's annoying, but it's not app compat. And dual-boot is pretty far outside the mainstream, I don't blame them for not building out other boot loader detection and integration. Other bootloaders change frequently, and windows install discs come out maybe every two years. It's better to have consistent behavior (windows install WILL wipe your MBR) than sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, and when it doesn't work everyone says it worked for me, etc.

anonbanker 11y ago
it's so far out the mainstream, that people have been doing it regularly for 20 years now. Grub is old enough to attend Junior High. Lilo would be in grad school. they both have windows compatability. Microsoft not reciprocating is evidence of their intent.
- TodPunk 11y ago
  "People" in this instance is a handful of special edge cases compared to the majority of computer users, even if we're only looking at people that build their own computer, or hell, even just looking at only linux users. Dual booting is a minority. Yes, you CAN do it. Linux has made it easy. Great! But not many DO. Nobody gives hell to every other OS manufacturer that will clobber our current bootloader configs. That means more than OSX, btw.
- eropple 11y ago
  FreeBSD used to (maybe still does?) clobber the boot loader too. Do they also have mustachios that they evilly twirl?
  - krylon 11y ago
    On the other hand, Windows runs on 85 - 90 percent of desktop machines, whereas FreeBSD's market share on the desktop is probably below 1%. (This is not a judgement on FreeBSD's quality as a desktop system, I have used it myself for about two years and was very happy with it. But compared to Windows, its market share on the desktop is tiny.) For better or worse, there is a difference between a system used by a tiny minority of people (again: on the desktop) and a system that practically has a monopoly on the (corporate) desktop and that is developed and sold by a company that has a history of anti-competitive behavior. (And to be fair, I get the impression that things have begun to change at Microsoft since Nadella became CEO. But that still does not erase history.)
    - eropple 11y ago
      That other hand and its callbacks to anti-competitive behavior and whispers of monopolies don't have much bearing on anything unless you are prepared to substantiate exactly how this behavior impacts the market share of other competitors. (I wish you luck on that very, very long row to hoe.) Meanwhile, even that "good behaving" Linux distro will happily remove Windows's boot record in favor of GRUB's, rendering the system reliant on a component that breaks if you want to remove Linux (and most people are way more likely to want to remove Linux than to remove Windows!). Hardly neighborly behavior in and of itself. And yet, I'm still not seeing a reason to cast aspersions on GRUB or Linux distros, nor am I seeing those twirly mustachios on their faces. No OS gives much of a damn about anything else running on the computer. Claims to the contrary are literally farcical and the pseudo-damages it could theoretically cause to the easily bruised are silly.
      - krylon 11y ago
        > No OS gives much of a damn about anything else running on the computer. Most Linux distros (the ones I have used, at least) will detect an existing Windows installation and put a corresponding entry into GRUB's menu. Linux has been able to access data on Windows partitions for many, many years. I agree that the boot loader issue probably has at most negligible impact on the adoption of Linux (or any other OS for that matter). I am just saying that in light of Microsoft's history one may feel inclined to judge them differently.
rbanffy 11y ago
> I don't blame them for not building out other boot loader detection and integration. It's not that they even try. Not even a little. Last time I installed Windows on real metal, it didn't even warn the other operating system would no longer boot. Microsoft probably has an internal policy to consider installing Windows is an upgrade.

untog 11y ago

I don't see how those two things are in any way connected. The point they were making is that you might even be able take a Windows 3.1 app (but definitely a Windows 95 one) and run it on Windows 8.

jcranmer 11y ago
Actually, you can't do Windows 3.1: Microsoft ripped out the Win16 subsystem in Windows 7.
- yuhong 11y ago
  They didn't. You can still enable it in 32-bit Win10 I think.
  - creshal 11y ago
    16-bit compatibility only exists in the 32-bit version, no longer in the 64-bit one. Same as every x64 version since XP64.
    - wvenable 11y ago
      This is because in 64-bit mode the CPU can no longer handle 16-bit code. It's all AMD's fault...
  - apaprocki 11y ago
    I wonder if Solaris ABI compat is actually older than the Windows stuff. Solaris to this day maintains binary compat with older releases and, for example, a 32-bit fopen() will fail once you open 255 streams because that was the limit in the ancient ABI. Everyone using Solaris at one point or another has probably hit this and it caused some issue, but Sun^H^H^HOracle refuses to make modern operation the default, all in the name of ancient binary compat. That's a bit more hardcore than optional support you can enable.

code_sterling 11y ago

And it should. Seriously, there are are less than 2% of users using Linux on the Desktop. Now a fraction of these users dual boot. Microsoft is a business, and it's bad business to spend money you could be using to make your product better to ensure that you play nice with every possible bootloader out there.

krylon 11y ago
Most people that are capable of installing Linux (or some other Unixoid system) are probably capable of reinstalling GRUB (at least with a little help from a search engine of their choice). But if you try to get your parents to give Linux a try, because their laptop ends up infected with some virus every other month, this does not help. Which makes me think: What about dual-booting two Windows installations? This is probably a very rare scenario, especially with virtualization, but what if I was developing, say, device drivers and wanted to check my driver works both on, say, Windows 7 and 8/8.1? Does the Windows installer put my other Windows installation in the boot menu automatically? (Honest question, I have never tried this and probably never will.)
- code_sterling 11y ago
  I wouldn't recommend linux if your parents keep getting malware. Wipe the PC, and set yourself up as the admin. Create a base user account for your parents, and RDP in to their machine to install programs for them. Or get them to use a tablet. The other option is to set them up with a mac. If they stay within the App Store, they're pretty safe.
- Shorel 11y ago
  I triple boot Windows XP, Windows 7 and Ubuntu 32bits in my gaming computer. Grub shows a single Windows entry on its boot menu. Then you see Windows 7 and 'Previous Windows version' in a text mode menu.
  - krylon 11y ago
    Thanks for the info!

digi_owl 11y ago

OS/2 is perhaps not the best example, as early on it was a MS/IBM collaborative project. And even afterwards it had the economic backing of IBM. So if MS got overt about it, there would likely have been a lawsuit. There is less risk of such from Linux. Even at their current size, RH is a flea next to MS.

yuhong 11y ago
That OS/2 2.0 fiasco used to be my favorite topic and I do have bad things to say against MS about it.

RaleyField 11y ago

> really difficult You only need to reinstall grub/lilo. It's possible to even use Windows bootloader.

mjg59 11y ago

This is limited to BIOS-based booting, and there isn't really a whole lot of choice there. There's no standardised mechanism for bootloader configuration in the BIOS world, so you have the choice of either: (a) overwriting the existing MBR, or (b) knowing how to configure every single third party bootloader, or (c) not booting In the UEFI world, the Windows installer won't overwrite any files it didn't install.

digi_owl 11y ago
UEFI brings with it all kinds of other lovelies though. https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTIyOTg https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTIyOTg Kinda reminds me of the issues Linux has run into with ACPI, and here are some lovely emails from Torvalds regarding that: http://yarchive.net/comp/linux/acpi.html http://yarchive.net/comp/linux/acpi.html

Shorel 11y ago

I think it just stopped happening with UEFI and Win10. With the caveat that UEFI has its own can of worms...